Kentucky State Police

It's been almost a year since the badly decomposed remains of a woman were found in Hart County. The body was beyond recognition, but now Kentucky State Police are teaming up with the National Missing & Unidentified Persons System to put a face, and hopefully a name, to the woman.

Last June 25, a truck driver jogging near Waterloo Road in Hart County noticed what appeared to be a dead body. Troopers called to the scene confirmed they were human remains but an identification was impossible.

All they had to go on was it was a female between 24 and 47 years old, wearing a necklace with the letter "S" emblem on it, a gray stud earring with a pink stone, a medium sized "Southern Comfort" t-shirt, red underwear and white Wilson sneakers with green laces. She was entered into NamUs just four days later as UP 13979.

The Hart County Coroner and Kentucky State Police reached out to Project EDAN (Everyone Deserves A Name) and Certified Forensic Artist Jeanne Cybulski of the Mesa, AZ police department took up the case.

Deputy Brandon Harvey and 72 year old Darrell Boatwright of Dunmor are both hospitalized after Harvey crashed his cruiser head-on into Boatwright's car in Logan County on Monday.

State police say Deputy Harvey was traveling north on US 431 near the intersection of Peach Blossom Road. Just after the intersection, a FedEx van was stopped in the road attempting to turn into a residence. The van was stopped due to oncoming traffic.

The project began November 1 with a data-driven strategy that places enforcement details in high crash zones where fatalities have occurred. State police say the effort will continue through the holidays.

Kentuckians wanting to get rid of unused prescription medicines can drop them off this Saturday during a statewide “pill take back” program.

The partnership between Kentucky State Police and the Drug Enforcement Administration will include take-back locations at the KSP posts in Bowling Green, Columbia, Elizabethtown, and Henderson, as well as 12 other locations statewide.

A man was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries after he was shot by a Barren County Sheriff’s Deputy Monday morning.

Kentucky State Police spokesman Jonathan Biven says authorities were called to the scene of a reported stabbing on South Gassaway Road. Officers then pursued a Chevy Equinox to a spot on New Bowling Green Road. Biven says the driver of that car, 22-year-old David Smith of Bowling Green, approached the sheriff’s deputy with a pair of scissors. When a Taser deployment didn’t work, Deputy Kevin Wilson shot Smith. No law enforcement officials were injured in the altercation.

Deputy Wilson has been placed on routine administrative leave as an investigation continues. Smith was taken to T.J. Samson Community Hospital.

Since 2006, Kentucky law enforcement agencies have received armored cars, aircraft, automatic weapons and more from a U.S. military equipment transfer program that has come under fire in the wake of civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.

Data, obtained from the Pentagon by The New York Times, identifies transfers of surplus military equipment from the U.S. Department of Defense's "1033 program,” which funnels surplus gear to state and local police departments, to 90 of Kentucky's 120 counties.

The records span from 2006 to May 2014, and place the value of the items—in various degrees of quality and offered for free to Kentucky agencies by the federal government—at about $38 million. Nationwide, the program has disbursed over $5 billion of equipment since its inception.

The program has been scrutinized by civil liberties advocates, citizens and elected officials across the U.S., who have been critical of law enforcement's military-style response to protests in the Ferguson, a predominantly African-American suburb 12 miles north of St. Louis. The unrest occurred in the wake of the fatal police shooting of unarmed African-American teenager Michael Brown.

Kentucky law enforcement agencies have received armored cars, aircraft, thousands of automatic weapons and more from a controversial U.S. military equipment transfer program that has been under fire in the wake of civil unrest in Ferguson, Mo.

The data, obtained by The New York Times, identifies transfers of surplus military equipment from the U.S. Department of Defense's "1033" program, which funnels extra gear to state and local police departments. The records span from 2006 to May 2014, and indicate 90 of Kentucky’s 120 counties have participated.

Kentucky State Police spokesman Sgt. Michael Webb says that the equipment is necessary, and that lethal force is used only in circumstances that require it.

“The deployment of that particular type of technology, whatever--if it’s a weapon or its boots or uniform items or whatever--obviously is going to be very dependent upon the situation and the role of that unit,” said Sgt. Webb.

The ACLU of Kentucky, however, says the program needs more transparency, and that while some of the equipment is justifiable, they disagree that police departments need such heavy weaponry.

Updated Wednesday at 8:52 a.m.: According to Kentucky State Police, the shooter has been identified as 39-year-old James Roames of Hendersonville, TN.

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Kentucky State Police say two people are dead after a murder-suicide at a rest stop on I-65 at the Kentucky-Tennessee line in Franklin.

Trooper Jonathan Biven says a man walked up to a parked car at about 9:30 Tuesday night and shot the driver at point blank range before turning the gun on himself.

The man in the car, 40 year old Jamie Plymel of Spring Hill, Tennessee, was pronounced dead at Franklin Medical Center in Simpson County. Biven says the gunman died at Skyline Medical center in Nashville. His name has not been released.

Biven says the shooting at the welcome center along I-65 appears to have been random and there's no apparent connection between Plymel and the shooter.

A Kentucky State Police operation to apprehend a record number of drug traffickers has fallen short of its goal.

The KSP launched Operation Black Friday on Nov. 1, and since then they have arrested 339 out of a total 479 targeted offenders.

Although the operation was billed as the largest one-day drug roundup in agency history, the bulk of the arrests were made over the course of the past month. KSP spokesman Trooper Paul Blanton says despite calling short, Black Friday is the largest operation led by the agency, and a third of the targets remain at-large, and might still be caught.

“There are still arrest warrants out there. It’s just the nature of the people that the arrests warrants are for: They’re transient; they’re not staying in the same place. Once several, or once one of the people they normally do business with ends up going to jail, you know, that makes them kind of try and get under the radar," Blanton said.

Blanton did not say how much the operation cost, adding that ‘Black Friday’ would continue until however long it takes.

An early-morning fire Friday at the Limestone Branch Distillery in Lebanon is under investigation by Kentucky State Police, the ATF and the state fire marshal’s office.

Trooper Billy Gregory says police got a call about a break-in at the distillery on Veterans Memorial Highway about 6 a.m. EST. When officers arrived, they quickly called the fire department.

“They were able to save the building without a huge loss and there were no injuries,” said Gregory. “At this time, the investigation has led us to believe that someone forced their way into the building and set the fire.”

Officials with the Bowling Green-Warren County Drug Task Force say they made 14 arrests Friday of the 23 offenders they were looking for in Warren and Simpson Counties. Director Tommy Loving says the arrests were without incident.

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Kentucky State Police troopers are rounding up hundreds of drug suspects in what the state's lead police agency calls the largest one-day drug crackdown in its history.

State police officials said Friday that posts across the state are expected to arrest 479 people. The arrests are expected to result in 774 charges in a state plagued by drug abuse.

State police Commissioner Rodney Brewer says the roundup called Operation Black Friday is the result of tips. Among the tipsters was a mother whose son is a drug addict. Brewer says her tips led to the arrest of the alleged drug dealer selling to her son.

Kentucky State Police Post 3 in Bowling Green are searching for Martin "Marty" Lewis Melton. Hewas reported missing by family members in Hart County.

Melton was last seen in a wooded area off Friendship Church Road in Hart County Monday morning. He was wearing a black t-shirt, blue jeans and black tennis shoes. He's described as a white male, 5'6" and 140 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes.

Melton reportedly has numerous medical issues that could potentially render him incapable of taking care of himself. He's also wanted through Barren County for assault 4th degree and persistent felony offender 1st degree.

Anyone with any information on Melton's whereabouts is asked to contact Kentucky State Police at 1-800-222-5555.